Windmills

Windmills were once common across the Great Plains and were important to settlement of the American West because they enabled farming on fertile plains where streams and rivers were scarce. Used primarily to pump water from underground wells, wooden windmills dotted the landscape throughout the 19th century, but metal windmills became more prevalent in the 20th century because of their greater efficiency. Popularized by Thomas Perry and LaVerne Noyes of the Aeromotor Company, metal wheels turned faster than wooden wheels, and improvements such as back gearing, which reduced the ratio of pump strokes per revolution, and self-oilers, which eliminated the need to climb the tower to add oil, made wooden windmills obsolete, and they were no longer produced after 1940. To pump water from an underground reservoir, wind moved the rotors on the wheel, forcing internal gears to move the pump rod in a reciprocal motion; on the downstroke the pump rod forced a plunger and check valve below the water table, and on the upstroke water was forced to the surface when the check valve on the plunger closed. This Star 24 model was likely purchased at the Hinshaw Merchantile Store by H.D. Horton in 1920 and used on his farm in Plevna, Kansas. Produced by the Flint and Walling Manufacturing Company of Kendallville, Indiana, the Star 24 was one of the most popular models of its day. During a windstorm in 1948, its wheel was blown off but the tower was undamaged, and the replacement wheel was a 6 1/2 foot Monitor WB model. The Monitor, named for the Civil War battleship, was produced by the Baker Manufacturing Company of Evansville, Wisconsin, which had been producing windmills since 1872.

Hutchinson, Kansas · United States